The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
It is best to lay our plans widely in youth, for then land is cheap, and it is but too easy to… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I don't like the city better, the more I see it, but worse. I am ashamed of my eyes that behold it.… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
How far men go for the material of their houses! The inhabitants of the most civilized cities, in all ages, send into… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
What would human life be without forests, those natural cities? — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I see less difference between a city and a swamp than formerly. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
We sometimes meet uncivil men, children of Amazons, who dwell by mountain paths, and are said to be inhospitable to strangers; whose… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
But it is rather derogatory that your dwelling-place should be only a neighborhood to a great city,--to live on an inclined plane.I… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature,… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
When you travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When you knock, ask to see God,--none of the servants. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
If ever I did a man any goodof course it was something exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil which I am… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“Men say they know many things; But lo! they have taken wings, — The arts and sciences, And a thousand appliances; The wind that… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or back gammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
“This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
A traveler who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the oldest inhabitant has not observed. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the… — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image
Concord's little arch does not span all our fate, nor is what transpires under it law for the universe. — Henry David Thoreau Copy Share Image